Embodiments of the inventive concept relate to semiconductor memory devices, and more particularly, to methods of and circuits for refreshing a semiconductor memory device.
Refresh operations are carried out to compensate for the degradation of stored data over time in certain types of memory devices. For example, in the case of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), the gradual charge leakage of a capacitive memory cell element may eventually result in the memory cell taking on an erroneous data state. As such, it may be necessary to periodically refresh the data state of the memory cell to avoid and/or reduce read errors.